


Third Time's the Charm

by Laura Shapiro (laurashapiro)



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-03-25
Updated: 2003-03-25
Packaged: 2017-10-02 02:19:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laurashapiro/pseuds/Laura%20Shapiro
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe, just maybe, they weren't crazy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Third Time's the Charm

It didn't really work until the third time. That's when they finally got it right.

Scanning his face, pillowed on her arm and settling into the impenetrable innocence of sleep, she realized she didn't feel any of the kinds of weird she'd felt before. Kinds of weird she'd been expecting to feel.

There wasn't that jangly first-time weird, there was no Will I Wake Up Alone weird, and there was none of the get-up-and-slay energy that masked the dreaded I Don't Really Love Him weird. She felt comfortable. Content. Peaceful, even.

Which, now that she thought about it, was _damned_ weird. But she was okay with that.

***

He entered her with a slow, sure thrust and she, still quivering from the orgasm he'd given her with his tongue, came again almost immediately. She muffled her cries against his shoulder -- a broad, sexy shoulder, on which she'd lain her head many times before, but not like this -- pushed against him with strength held gently in check, and let the waves carry her home. Then she settled in for a nice long ride, watching the unfamiliar and rewarding emotions play on his familiar face. He moved with a grace she'd never expected; intent, utterly focused, his whole body a slave to the beat of want. It reminded her a little of the way he'd looked fitting the glass to the front windows. The exquisite care and purpose, the lip-biting...

But he was rubbing her in all the right places, and she angled her hips and bore down, squeezing him tight to that good spot. He arched away from her as he came, a hard surge coupled with a short, bright sound, and then he collapsed, shuddering. She enjoyed his pulses inside her, imagined she could feel the warmth of his come through the condom.

***

He licked her so perfectly she could have cried. At first, the fact that he was on his knees to her was a little disturbing and, okay, a lot arousing. The way he'd lain her back on the bed, pulled her hips slowly to the mattress' edge, and then...gone...down...heat flushed her chest and crested in her clit, met by his quickening lapping.

He teased a little, circling everywhere but where she wanted it -- enough to say "Don't worry, I know what I'm doing" -- and then dove back in, working her in fast, wet stripes that got shorter and shorter as her breath came shorter and shorter and she reached down and took hold of his hands. That's it, yes, now, now!

***

Dawn's light was still on when she led him into her room, but it went out just as she shut the door. Then his hand was warm at the nape of her neck, and she played her tongue around his smile and then thrust in, wanting. He broke the kiss and held her against his chest. His heart battered her ear.

Then she looked up as he looked down, and whanged his chin with her forehead, and for an instant she thought that this really was a bad idea after all.

"Ow. Okay, _Ow_."

She worried he'd bitten his tongue. "Are you okay?"

He grinned at her. "Nice reflexes there. Wait until I tell the world that The Slayer can't even maneuver around a simple hug."

"That's me. The Chosen Klutz." She returned his smile. Suddenly it all felt so easy. "I'm glad your tongue's all right."

He bent to kiss her neck and murmured, "Me too. I've got things I like to do with it."

***

The second time, she'd gone over to his apartment to tell him that this just wasn't a good idea, and ended up on top of him, on top of the kitchen table. Everything was moving hard and fast in a way that was familiar to her, if not exactly what she'd had in mind, really, at all, but she was just getting to the good place when he said "Hold on," and reached between them.

The condom, as it turned out, had slipped off, and after a fruitless and increasingly awkward search of all the obvious places, she'd spent ten humiliating minutes in the bathroom, fishing it out. At the end of which, her wrist was sore, she was dry, and her temper was frayed. It was all proof of what she already knew: wrong, wrong, six kinds of wrong.

But he'd felt so good inside her.

***

That second time, when she'd opened his jeans, he'd sprung out in a way that was both exciting and friendly, right into her hand.

"You're _huge_."

He looked embarrassed. "I get by."

And then "Oh god," as she took him into her mouth.

***

When he opened the door, she was hit by a wave of lust so strong it knocked her prepared speech straight out of her head. But as he reached for her, pulling her inside, she smelled his smell and remembered that he was her friend, her _friend_, and she didn't want to do anything to hurt that. She didn't want to lose him.

"Haven't you figured it out yet, Buff? You can't lose me."

***

The first time didn't really count. She guessed it was nerves, but he couldn't get hard, and he looked like he might cry.

She held him and tried to think of anything to say that wasn't a cliché, or patronizing, or both. She tried _not_ to say the thing that was most obvious of all, but she failed. "Maybe this just...isn't meant to be."

He pulled back and took her face in his hands. It was so strange, looking straight into his eyes like this. "I'm asking you, and don't think I don't fully appreciate the irony, to give me another chance."

She shook his hands off, then regretted the curtness of the gesture. "Xander, I -- you know how I feel about you, but --"

"No, I'm not sure I do, and I'm not sure you do either." He reached for her hand. "Look, Buffy, it's taken us seven years to get this far. You really wanna give up now?"

***

She pushed him against her bedroom door, going on kissing him as it opened to his weight, then dragging him in and shoving it closed with one hand, the other running up under his shirt. My god, his chest, his shoulders, why hadn't she noticed?

He was shaking all over. She kept feeling, as she threw his shirt off, unbuttoned her blouse, ripped her bra away, that she should probably slow down. The fact of him standing there, naked, in her bedroom -- the fact of the soaked crotch of her panties -- sent a ghost of fear rushing up through her chest. So she didn't stop to think, she just went for him, kissing and grabbing everything she could reach, afraid he'd slip through her fingers if she didn't hold on tight.

His fingers were awkward, rough with calluses, and he was so tall he had to move into a crouch to touch her there. She was so wet that any touch was good, but despair burst briefly in her mind. Bad idea, bad idea, but he was _him_, he was Xander, he was her friend and he smelled good and he loved her and maybe, just maybe, they weren't crazy.

***

Xander was painting the window frame. As he reached to get the top right corner, Buffy noticed the play of muscles in his back, and the way the tool belt was slung low across his hips. Then he bent down to load the brush, and her mouth fell open. There was an instant of "yowza", followed by shock. She was checking out Xander's ass. The hell?

"Huh."

He looked at her. "Something wrong, Buff? Did I miss a spot?"

"Hm? Oh, nothing. It's -- nothing."

THE END


End file.
